little ones
don't stay
little ones
soon fade
little ones
are fine
little ones
no one minds

tied red ribbons
round my thighs
try to keep them
together

silver knives
paint pretty
red feathers

definitely
my fault
this time
you call that
trying?

monster in my tummy
trying to get out
i am not
allowed

metal hearts were my thing for while
they'd hang off my neck
bump against my chest
one time a particularly heavy one swung up
punched me in the mouth
gave me a ****** lip.

i used to have an effect on people.
i used to be bright
and loud
and awake
and people always remembered me
always wanted me around

i used to stand for something
mean something
when i thought there was something worth existing for.

i miss having that purpose
that purpose of making someone's life a little better
that purpose of tough love

brianna remembers me as i was
glitter and cat ears
and big hugs
but she also recognizes that i am gone now
that my receding back looks dull
tired
worn down

i let all the things i preached against beat me down
take my happiness

i'd take it back but i don't know how
don't know where it went
don't know exactly when
don't know how to feel things
or anything
again

those metal hearts i wore so proudly
dug their way inside of me
i am now the tin man
heartless and cold to the touch

i used to mean something.
ask anyone i used to know.

little holes in my shirt
little lines on my thigh
should have paid attention

never do

there is a screaming face in the roof of this van
and i am starting to wonder if it is mine
eyes punched in
a ***** light fixture for a nose
a gaping, gashed mouth
almost smiling
in its torment

social
anxiety
trying to find the fight in me
the part that doesn't say
just don't go
just stay home

is when they mess with your head
light fires in your mouth
and make you hide in your bed

put stones in your heart
to drag you deep down under
they fight and they fight
their screams predictable as thunder

the rain is the part that gathers in mom's eyes
when she keeps you up late
to tell you lies
lying on the couch
her arm over her face
foundation in streaks
like old dry erase

it's when she lets you stay up late
to read to her specially
just to give her departure
more brevity

when she kisses you on the cheek
and holds you tight
then calls the cops on dad
that same night

when she only gives you presents
to make you feel bad
when she feels better
by making you sad

emotional abuse
is when she calls on a restricted number
tells you she loves you
but won't let you see your little brother
when she slaps you in the face
slams your arm in a door
well
maybe that's not
emotional abuse anymore...

when she tells you she loves you
but leaves anyway...
abuse is abuse,
it all feels the same.

i like video games because they open up their pixelated arms to me
and enfold me
they squish out anything that is too hard for me to think about
and drop me into something with a controller that i can hold
for once

i am an alien in their universe but they welcome me
assimilate me
drown out the bad feelings
the bad words
that you just said to me
i like video games because they make me feel safe
make me feel smart
important
successful
happy

some people think i am strange
and i am sorry
i don't really care
i am just here to feel better

we fight demons that trickle out our ears
and run down our cuffs
garishly dancing on our palms
inciting the captivation of our interest

and they get what they want
because there is no cost to us
to look
to watch
to absorb

we fight demons that trickle out our ears
and run down our cuffs
locking themselves around our wrists
laying themselves against our arms
in words we didn't know existed
in relation to ourselves

and they get what they want
as we watch:

the price of absorption
is to lose your right thinking

they have not words
to strike a competitive pose
against ours
but they do the best with what they have.

i become extremely depressing at night
and i can feel it bothering you
in the pleading tone of your voice
the begging in your questions
you finally just give up
after a while

i didn't use to do this
it's a new thing
since you came
and went
and i came
and i went
and you went

i can't take a summer without you

katy perry wasn't far off track
sometimes my emotions feel like plastic bags
drifting in the african dust...
a place i put my feet
one february
years ago

and flatsound tells me to come clean
but i can't
i have nothing to contrast it with
ignorance is my final plea

and i don't even know
what holocene means,
bon iver

but i know
that poetry is just words on different lines
and they're the only ones i seem to write
these days

i wake up with the cloying taste of a nightmare in my mouth
not for the first time this week
and i imagine not for the last

i made you a chart
concerning all the ways we ****** up
and sent it to you last night
haven't heard a word
since

i had the implicit feeling that what i was saying was dangerous.
that it could take this little thing we have going on
and expose all the little tangled wires
sparking
and smoking...
that i could make you feel bad enough
that you wouldn't want to talk to me

and i was right.

i guess you have to learn to be content.
content with the boy you have
the clothes you own
the place you're in
the lot you've been dealt.

though i am not sure how you learn it.
i suspect that your mother teaches you
but i wouldn't know
would i

caffeine makes me feel like ****
but today i'm chugging it
focus on the negativity in my cup
so the positives don't put me too high up

happy is just how far from the ground you are
happy is just how far you'll fall
how hard you'll hit
the pavement
i'd rather be an inch high
than on a cliff
is it worth
the self interest

tragedy has made me silent.

he crept down my throat
and softly snipped away at my voice;
now there is nothing.

i smile and nod
smile and nod
smile and smile
and nod and nod
falling asleep in plain sight
watching your lips move in speech
wishing mine would follow suit

tragedy has made me silent,

made me timid
made me grow in stature until i am awkward
gangly
always in the way
hiding behind
a shorter sister
but still a sore thumb

a quiet
quaking
obvious protrusion
i invoke conversation
but it dies out
with the smile in my eyes
the bobbing of my head
the silence of my lips

tragedy has made me silent.

i need to stop thinking.

i know if i think too much
by myself
i will end up sitting on my bed
drawing pictures on my arms
with a knife
and they tell me
not to do that

i have never been good at listening

your razorblade tongue ran across my forearm
my *******
my thighs
i know it isn't right
but make a mistake enough times
and it no longer feels like one
i am always fine
until i am alone
in my room
thinking about you
and your
quick
cutting
tongue
on my skin

forgive me lord
i have
sinned

fat became
chubby
became
gorgeous
became
just me
became
ok
to be
when you
are with me

sometimes i pull up my shirt
look down at my bare tummy
and sigh.

why can't you be better, tummy?
why can't you be smaller
nicer
softer
better?

like a child
i am chiding
tut-tutting
at its misbehavior

tummy, i do so much for you
i skip meals
and don't drink water
and wrap you in all kinds of weird dyi concoctions
and lotions
i take pills
and cry before seeing the boy that i like
all for you,
tummy.

why can't you be
like the other ones
why must you be
the way you are?

i will fix you.

first he kisses them
then he causes them
we cannot win
or maybe just him
or maybe just me

"it's ok"
i whisper to my arm
with the new scar
waiting to dry
"it's ok"
i whisper to my cheeks
with the salty tears
waiting to dry
"it's ok"
i say to the moon
without a face
waiting to die
"it's ok"
i whisper myself
with the cuts
waiting to die

bloodstains are pretty
like flowers for people who are sad
or stars for people who are too in love
or little redheaded girls
who are too afraid

side by side boxes
with little bleeding words
my blood smeared on one
the other yet to be graced
tonight is a good night
for him to be
baptized
i wish it wasn't in my
blood
with this
knife

i didn't forget that i was hurtable
i just forgot that you were capable
now i am in trouble

i wonder if i could slip through one of the cuts on my arm
through that long, narrow red slit
inbetween its folds
and be somewhere else
where pain flows fast and sure
but away

i never felt like the world was small enough
or vulnerable enough
or alone enough
to reach out and pluck from its holder
like an ill-fitted candlestick
but now that God has become a wooden statue
now that God no longer seems to breathe
or even be there
at all
the world is something that i see as
contained
crowded
dull tasting
like soda that has gone flat
and without
resolve.

i could pick up the world now, hold it in my hand
look at it
laugh at the small people
take a bite out of it
like an apple;
the world doesn't frighten me.
doesn't inspire me.
doesn't hold me.
doesn't care about me.
the world is

empty

it doesn't make me feel better.
it makes me feel like throwing up afterwards
someday i will get away from it

i leaned across the sink
and let the sun touch my freckles
like i was doing him a favor
as well as myself
for once

i think sometimes you just have to deal with being scared.
you just have to accept that being scared is being human
(an infinitesimal dot on a map)...
that though you are small you are not powerless
and though sometimes you can't talk because you are crying
or because you are afraid
it is ok
the things you feel work just as good as words
sometimes.

i think sometimes
even when big parts of us are frightened
we have to listen to the little part that says stay

i am glad i stayed.
though i am still frightened
i will learn to live with my fear
i am just a small human
but i am a big spirit.

i am working very hard at being noticed.
long streaks of eyeliner keep my paper white face from slipping into 21 year old patterns
that i often see on my walks
skinny jeans give my body permanence
new, high-heeled sneakers
walk me back to flesh and bone:
the stains on my lips remind me to exist.

i am falling behind
blending in
fading away
from over-exposure
i must find new ways
to darken my frame
define my lines
make me easier to see
if you look at me
then i exist

i exist

i exist

i exist

i have lost feeling on the bottom of my right foot.
i stepped on a broken something
and its sharp edge cut my nerves.
it is one of many.

i don't really write much poetry anymore
i guess sometimes you have to ignore the bad things
and be happy
and all my happy poetry comes out ******....
....i don't really write much poetry anymore.

the phantom facebook message blip
pervades beneath picture atlantic
while i sit in my room.

i wonder today
as i walk down the street
if someone
will yell at me.

something like
"does the carpet match the drapes?"
"want a ride?"
"nice ***"
"you're just my size"
"hey ginger"

red in the head
good in bed
they say

i am glad the pictures here are in black and white.

my **** star lips are not for you to taste
nor the "unhealthy" curvature of my hips
and waist.
i have made myself an object
(perfection in all traits)
love is no longer
left up to The Fates.

he listens to me in vermont
as i breathe in new york
the slow labored tones
of sleep.

from a scratched house by a ****** park
to a rich wooden cottage deep in snow-hushed woods
my moose listens to my little sighs
and groans
and going-to-sleep-noises.

the way he clears his throat comforts me.

after he tries to be sweet
but the moment is gone
i don't want to be touched

even though i would never let you
i love how you would spend $138 on a ******* stuffed panda
to make me smile.

i keep trying to **** it up
but it keeps sorting its **** out
love isn't such a tricky *****
after all

ask anyone i know:
i have a tendency to forget things.

i forgot moose's middle name
my password
what day i have to go to the dentist
what i did yesterday
if i ate this morning
what year i stopped talking to ryan
the words to my favorite moldy peaches song
the name of a childhood friend
the book that i was supposed to return
the movie i was supposed to bring
the cookies i was supposed to bake
the smile i was supposed to smile
the words i was supposed to say

but this is only lately.
i used to remember everything

i thought my tactic of not thinking about the bad things
made the bad things not real

but it only makes me
forgetful

glaringly white and rather rotund
a label peeling off his back
my friend from The Bad Summer
sits on my bookshelf.

moose says that this is
The Good Winter
and that no one will hurt me now
but moose doesn't yet know
who really does all the hurting
if he did, he would never leave me
on my own

i cannot help but ponder the magic of a smile
even just a picture of one
no one has ever been as sweet to me
as you,
moose

when my dad cries he can't talk.
there's a pregnant silence while he whistles air through his pursed lips
trying to catch onto words.
a slight wheeze
a reoccurring clearing of the throat
as if this would distract you from what was happening -

when my dad cries
he can't talk;
he doesn't cry very often.
when i cry
all i do is talk

i am still my mother.

ah, that frozen "goodnight"....
moose has gone deep freeze
post-apocalyptic
damage control
sass has struck again
and that is what hurt me the most, out of all of it
even though i did all this **** on purpose
that lack-luster "goodnight"
no "I Love You's"
or those silly little hearts
no pet names
no smiles
is what hit home

i will miss you. but this is better
this is right
this is good
i cannot be with people

i am too frightened of myself.

i am getting rid of you
and i am doing it in such a way that you think it is your idea.
this way i have not the guilt

i am so terribly relieved
but i am also becoming so terribly sad
this is what i want
this is what i need
this is what we both need
but for some reason i still don't know why i'm doing it

you are winding me down now
letting me down easy
with your last constructive words
of how good this conversation has been
for better or for worse
like we are recalling our vows
as we are breaking them
and i have nothing to say after you thank me
nothing long winded
nothing regretful
you are thanking me for making you fall out of love

i do not think that is such a thing one should be thanked for

there are good, honest people
and bad, honest people
and i do not know what will make me not one of them.
we are all masochistic embodiments of the pain we endure
looking for similarities to cling to and grow out of -
i don't want to be one of them

but i do what i would not,
i am that which i despise

little girls grow up

who once reached for the birds singing in the trees
now she is one of them,
the uncatchable song

i knew you as an awkward, silly, pudgy thing
but death changes people
and makes them more beautiful -

too many lose brothers.

he says he loves me sooooooooooooo much.
he says he wants to kiss my shoulder freckles
and my nose
and my lips
and my cheeks
kiss, kiss, kiss he says.

he says he wants to squeeze me
wants me to sit on his lap
let him wrap me up while i play my silly video games and yell at the screen

moose says i am the best thing that happened to mooses
moose says he likes my brain
moose says he likes my hair
moose says he likes my **** and my eyes and the way i crinkle my nose

i do not deserve him
and that's why i won't let him
i am too scared how he will be
if i leave
i never know when i am leaving